Small-scale fisheries bycatch jeopardizes endangered Pacific loggerhead turtles.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Although bycatch of industrial-scale fisheries can cause declines in migratory megafauna including seabirds, marine mammals, and sea turtles, the impacts of small-scale fisheries have been largely overlooked. Small-scale fisheries occur in coastal waters worldwide, employing over 99% of the world's 51 million fishers. New telemetry data reveal that migratory megafauna frequent coastal habitats well within the range of small-scale fisheries, potentially producing high bycatch. These fisheries occur primarily in developing nations, and their documentation and management are limited or non-existent, precluding evaluation of their impacts on non-target megafauna.

Principal findings/methodology

30 North Pacific loggerhead turtles that we satellite-tracked from 1996-200

SUBMITTER: Peckham SH 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2002513 | biostudies-literature | 2007 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature